Inspecting steel rollers

YouTube is very clever. It knows what you’re watching and over to the right suggests similar videos it thinks you might enjoy. Sometimes this leads to awkward or embarrassing results – see what’s listed when you search for “plumber” – but other times it leads to some serendipitous discoveries. Fortunately today was one of the latter.

I was viewing a movie from machine vision integrator Waveaxis that demonstrated their roller inspection system, when up popped a very similar video in the suggested title list.

Here’s the Waveaxis system:

And here’s a similar “Automated Roller Visual Inspection System”:

Now the Waveaxis system is a good effort but it’s a lab mock-up, a proof-of-principle you might say. The second system though is clearly production-ready, and much more complex.

The voiceover mentions that four cameras are used, though while we see screen shots of the end face inspection we don’t see the OD surface images. One point I found fascinating was the incorporation of an ultrasonic cleaning system. Part cleanliness is something I struggle with constantly though it seldom gets discussed in the magazines and literature. Clearly the machine builder/integrator had given this some thought.

Unfortunately though, there’s nothing on the second video to say who made it. If it was you, or you know the builder, please post a comment so I can give you the credit you deserve.